1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to wireless communication technology, and in particular, to an apparatus and method for estimating velocity of a moving object such as a mobile terminal.
2. Description of the Related Art
A 4th generation (4G) mobile communication system aims at supporting a dual mode functionality in which a mobile service by International Mobile Telecommunications 2000 (IMT2000) is unified with a fixed service by Wireless Location Access Network (WLAN). The 4th generation system adaptively assigns the mobile service and the fixed service to a user in such a way that it supports a high-capacity service in a fixed mode when the user's operation environment is excellent, whereas it supports a service in a mobile mode when the user's operation environment is poor.
Efficient management of a service mode must be continuously performed not only during initial access, but also during communication. To this end, an algorithm for efficiently performing initial mode selection, handoff and link adaptation of the mobile service and the fixed service is required. In particular, an adaptive modulation and coding scheme (AMCS), one of typical technologies for link adaptation, selects a modulation/coding scheme by determining parameters capable of indicating a user's operation environment and then estimating the values: The parameters indicating a user's operation environment are used as information for handoff between different modes and resource assignment of the adaptive modulation/coding scheme. For dynamic assignment of resources, accurate estimation for a user's operation environment is necessary.
In a wireless communication system, velocity information of a mobile terminal is an important parameter indicating a user's operation environment, and can improve system performance when it is actually applied. When applied to adaptive transmission/reception technology, velocity information of the mobile terminal enables a receiver to perform more efficient channel estimation and a transmitter to adjust a modulation/coding or interleaving scheme according to a channel condition. In addition, based on the velocity information of thea mobile terminal, the system can accurately determine whether to perform handoff or not, and a handoff time, and can efficiently manage system resources.
Such a velocity estimation scheme used in various application fields is classified into a level crossing rate (LCR) estimation scheme and a covariance (COV) estimation scheme. The level crossing rate estimation scheme estimates velocity using how many times an envelope, i.e., power, of a received signal crosses a predetermined reference level during a predetermined time period, i.e., the number of level crossings. The covariance estimation scheme estimates velocity of the mobile terminal, using a covariance value between received samples having a predetermined time difference.
Of the velocity estimation schemes, the covariance estimation scheme has a sensitive performance difference according to variation in channel environment parameters such as a Rician factor and an incidence angle of Line of Sight (LOS). In a micro-cell environment, it is difficult to stably use the covariance estimation scheme when Rician fading is considered. Compared with the covariance estimation scheme, the level crossing rate estimation scheme uses a level crossing rate which is a secondary statistical characteristic of an envelope fading and, for 2-dimensional isotropic scattering, velocity of a mobile can be calculated irrespective of a Rician fading characteristic.
However, since the conventional level crossing rate estimation scheme uses only a channel characteristic without considering an influence of noises, accuracy of velocity estimation is lowered undesirably in a noisy environment where a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is decreased. Thus, there is a need for a method of improving accuracy of velocity estimation when a level crossing rate is used in a low-SNR environment.